SACO — The Thornton Academy girls lacrosse team grinded out an 8-2 win against visiting Gorham Tuesday afternoon.

Although the Trojans won by a decent-sized margin, the Rams never slowed down or let TA get comfortable.

TA coach Craig Agreste expected a tough battle heading into Tuesday’s match.

“(Gorham) is a good team and we knew it was going to be a competitive game. We were fortunate to get a little cushion which forced them to come and play us,” said Agreste. “The girls took advantage of that and capitalized when they played us and they played great. It was a good win because that was a good team we beat.”

TA had six different scorers on the day, which Agreste considered a big advantage.

“We have a lot of balance which is a huge advantage. Everyone knows Faith (Sinclair), everyone knows Paige (LeBlanc), so the other girls have to step up and they’re more than capable to do so … they’re going to have to all year and today they did a good job,” said Agreste.

TA got on the board early with a goal from Elizabeth Bell from the left side just 2:12 into the game. Gorham played tight defense, however TA broke through again at the 10:54 mark when Amanda Cyr put in another goal to give the Trojans a 2-0 lead.

Cyr was able to squeeze in another goal before the halftime break to give TA a 3-0 lead.

The Trojans came out firing again in the second half, starting with Sinclair scoring her second goal less than three minutes into the period.

Julianna Grondin scored just a minute later, followed by another goal from Sinclair to make the score 6-0.

Gorham finally got on the board at the 17:05 mark with a goal from Hallie Shiers, however TA responded six minutes later with a goal from Catherine Henaire.

The Rams made one last effort to get back in the game with a late goal from Marina Pappalardo, but Hannah McAlary scored TA’s eighth goal to secure the win.

Agreste felt that TA’s ball possession was key in the victory.

“We’re a work in progress on defense, we have a lot of work to do in the draw circle, but today was a good day for us. If you get possession of the ball, it doesn’t matter how good the other team is – they cant score,” said Agreste. “That’s it, if we can get the ball and keep the ball then we are going to be in good shape all year.”

Although Agreste was pleased with the win, he hopes his team continues to improve while working on the little things.

“I think our biggest issue is us right now. We are still young, sometimes we don’t catch the ball when we are open, sometimes we don’t make the right pass. I thought there were a couple of shots when we were up 6-1 that were not the best shots that we could get. What you don’t want to do is give them life and give them an opportunity to get back into it,” said Agreste.

Overall, Agreste was happy to get the early victory against a tough Gorham squad.

“It’s important to get quality wins against quality teams and that’s what we did today, this was a quality win against a good team so we’re happy about that.”